Tempus: head start on rivals is sustained

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It is hard to be negative about results from Ashtead Group yesterday,
which propelled the shares 31½p ahead to 658½p in dire markets. But let’s at
least try.

Ashtead paid $1 billion for NationsRent in the US in 2006, just before the
financial crisis. Plainly, the timing was unfortunate. But, paradoxically,
the crisis delivered the company one advantage.

Rival construction equipment renters were unable to access credit to renew and
build up their fleets, while Ashtead has been expanding and reducing the age
of its own with continual capital spending. In the year to the end of April,
it spent